5ipe Siian itijg
Seventy-eight years of editorial freedom
Edited and managed by students of the University of Michigan
Pausing On
the way to
the
moon
420 Maynard St., Ann Arbor, Mich.
News Phone: 764-0552
Editorials printed in The Michigan Daily express the individual opinions of staff writers
or the editors. This must be noted in al reprints.
AY, JULY 15, 1969 NIGHT EDITOR: NADINE COHODAS
TUESD
Poli e harassment
MAYOR ROBERT HARRIS said, "we
can't make war on our youth," but
at least some of the police of Ann Arbor
are out to prove him wrong. They have
opened a war in this town against the
young people they hate-a war which is
far from over.
On Friday nights in Ann Arbor some
people go to the movies or to a TG.
Some people go out to dinner and some
sit on ,the Diag and wonder about the
night. Whatever people do Friday nights
they usually try to wear away the tedium
of the week. The same is, true of the
people who gathered at the Whistle Stop
restaurant on South Forest Ave. last Fri-
day night.
It wasn't much different from a
normal week night at the Whistle Stop,
ju'st a few more people. The regular group
of 20 or 30 was crowded into and around
the restaurant's cramped quarters, read-
ing newspapers and eating sandwiches.
Some sat inside and some sat and stood
outside around the table and three chairs
which stand on a small cement patio,
belonging to the restaurant,, between the
front door and the sidewalk. As Whistle
Stop manager Richard Gartee explains,
"It's hot in here and people would rather
sit outside."
The people were typical of those who
frequent the Whistle Stop-young, hir-
sute, not at all the Brooks Brothers type
and not too dissimilar from the people
who gather in any number of coffee
shops and restaurants around town.
BUT THE PEOPLE in the Whistle Stop
have one distinguishing characteristic.
They are hated by many of the police.
The police hold them to blame for the
South University incidents of mid-June
and on that Friday night last week they
decided to wreak a little vengeance on
them.
Around 12:30 a.m. that night two of
the police who had been patrolling South
University, as has been their practice
since the June "disturbances," walked
slowly over to the people gathered near,
the Whistle Stop and told them the table
and chairs would have to be moved in-
side along with the people Whom the
police claimed were blocking the side-
walk.
'The 'police then walked off saying
they would return in a few minutes to
see if their orders had been followed.
Gartee, who had objected in vain to
the police order on the grounds that the
outdoor table had been maintained for
several months without incident and that
the table was on restaurant property,
went inside and called the police depart-
ment. The sergeant who answered his call
told him he knew of no reason why the
table could not remain outside unless a
complaint about noise had been made.
He was unaware of such a complaint
(there was none).
JUST AFTER Gartee hung up the first
two policemen joined by a third re-
turned to the Whistle Stop. They pushed
people behind the line that marks -the
edge of the Whistle Stop's property. By
this time the taunting had begun, but
there was nothing serious.
People' were mostly asking for badge
numbers. One of the people who finally
managed to copy the numbers was Jackie
.Evens, an employe of the restaurant. She
had been instructed to do so by Gartee.
Having copied down the numbers Miss
Evans began walking back into the
Whistle Stop and, according to m o r e
than 20 witnesses, yelled to Gartee, "I've
got the pigs' numbers."
That did it. Through some magic, un-
known to anyone but the minions of the
law, the word "pigs" became obscenity
and the pristine propriety of everyone's
first grade reader was overthrown. The
police plunged into the crowd brandish-
ing riot sticks after Miss Evans, who was
still unaware of the heinous nature of
her deed. In their rush to apprehend Miss
Evans, witnesses say, the police managed
to knock down Grant Fischer, also an em-
ploye 'of the restaurant. Both were then
arrested.
ACCORDING TO THE records of the
court Miss Evans has been charged
with violation of section 9:62 (9) of the
municipal code which states that "no
person shall use vile, profane or obscene
language in any public place." The
statute goes no further in defining just
what word or words it covers.
Grant was charged with violating
section 9:62 (28). This states that "no
person shall obstruct, resist, hinder, or
oppose any policeman . . . in the dis-
charge of-his duties, as such."
But that wasn't the end of it. The
police came back after depositing the two
in a police van and continued to enforce
their order that everyone must stand be-
hind the line. Audrey Simmons made
the mistake of taking one step outside
the line in her attempt to compile a list
of witnesses for the two just arrested. She
was arrested and charged on section
9:62 (18) which says "no person shall
loiter on any street or sidewalk or in
any park or public building or conduct
himself in any public place so as to ob-
struct the free and uninterrupted pas-
sage of the public."
There can be no question that the
charges brought against these people
should be dropped immediately.
,BUT THERE IS more to this incident
than the occasional vagaries of the
law. It is, in fact, a flagrant example of
police harassment. The problem won't
disappear if the legal system finds, as it
should, that these people committed no
crimes. The harassment will still be
there.
That same Friday night, other people
in Ann Arbor were having fun. T h e r e
were parties that flowed into the street
and people drinking in public. But the
police weren't there.
During the fall, as one astute council-
man suggested last week, the police
could make 5,000 arrests at any football
game. But they don't.
Everyone should be allowed the same
treatment by the police. They should not
be allowed to wink benevolently at some
and lash out at others. The first step the
city should take in alleviating the situa-
tion is to fire the police involved in the
Whistle Stop arrests. After that the city
should establish an effective poliee re-
view boardto curb the vindictiveness of
the police, and make their /enforcement
of the law follow patterns equitable and
fair to all.
WITH THE POLICE harassment that
goes on in this town-of the people
at Trans-Love, the people at the Whistle
Stop, the black people, and most recently
the members of a conference of under-
ground newspaper editors-it is amazing
that there has not been a violent re-
action by those harassed. And it is small
wonder that the police are known as pigs.
-THE CO-EDITORS
By DAVE CIIUDWIN
and MARVIN RUBENSTEIN
, CAPE KENNEDY
FOR BETTER or for worse we are going'
to the moon. The machines are ready.
the men trained, the money spent. The
countdown has begun for mankind's first
attempt to reach another celestrial object.
It is a voyage dreamed of for thousands
of years. Tantalizingly close, at least in
cosmic terms, the moon h a s fascinated
mankind for as long as we can remember.
Our language and literature are replete
with references to the bright beacon of the
night. As e a r 1y as 160 A.D. Lucian of
Greece wrote of a flight to the m o o n.
Hundreds of years later Dumas, Verne,
Voltaire, and Poe told tales of lunar travel.
But the stories were just that -- ima-
ginary tales. It was not until early in the
twentieth century that Robert Goddard.
Hermann Oberth, and Konstantin Tsiol-
kovsky independently laid the foundation
for space travel.
As is often the case, it took a war to get
the young science of rocketry on 'its feet.
With Hitler's blessings Wernher von Braun
and his compatriots of the German Society
for Space Travel set up shop in Peenemun-
de and developed the V-2 rocket.
The rockets' devastating effect on Lon-
don made sure missiles would never be ig-
nored again. After W o r I d War II Von
Braun and his group surrendered to the
Americans, coming here to form the nuc-
leus of what is now our space effort.
A different kind of war brought rocketry
and space travel to big-time status. Cold
war rivalries with Russia led to the de-
velopment of larger missiles to carry new-
ly developed nuclear warheads.
T h e Eisenhower administration, how-
ever, placed low priority on the u s e of
these missiles for space travel. A small mil-
itary program was given limited funds to
rocket. More ambitious proposals such as
a flight to the moon, were rejected.
Soon after, J o h n F. Kennedy became
President and almost immediately he was
beset by crisis. The abortive Bay of Pigs
invasion sent national prestige to a low
point.'
Then, on April 12, 1961, the Russians
launched the late Yuri Gagarin into im-
mortality as the first human to travel in
outer space. In a series of conferences Ken-
nedy decided the U.S. must challenge So-
viet superiority in space.
Accepting recommendations for an en-
larged space program, Kennedy went be-
fore Congress on May 25, 1961 and asked
that America put men on the moon and
return them safely before the end of the
decade.
"NO SINGLE space project in this per-
iod will be more impressive to mankind, or
more important for the long-range explor-
ation of space," he explained.
Now, eight years and $24 billion later,.
Astronauts Neil Armstrong, Michael Col-
lins, and Edwin (Buzz) Aldrin are set to
accomplish that goal.
Work on the Apollo flight plan was be-
gun years ago. Every one of the hundreds
of details has been planned, tested, and
revised countless times. Hopefully the re-
sult will be a landing on the moon at 4:23
p.m. EDT next Sunday afternoon.
Their Apollo spacecraft atop a three-
stage Saturn V rocket, Astronauts Arm-
strong, Collins, and Aldrin are scheduled to
begin their odyssey Wednesday with blast-.
off at 9:32 a.m.
The monstrous Saturn V, gulping 15 tons
of, fuel per second, puts the trio of vet-
eran astronauts into a parking orbit around
the earth. After thoroughly checking out
their spacecraft, the moonmen relight the
third stage engine for five minutes to put
themselves on a path to the moon,
SOON AFTER, the astronauts maneu-
ver the mothership -- the command and
service modules - to about fifty feet away
from the third stage. The mothership then
turns around and links up with the lunar
landing module, still nestled in the rocket
stage.
Docked nose-to-nose, t h e mothership,
codename Columbia, and the lunar mod-
ule, codename Eagle, abandon the third
stage and continue the 73 hour coast to-
wards the moon.
Saturday afternoon the astronauts ap-
proach the moon, swinging around its back
side. If all systems are ".go" Armstrong
fires the spacecraft engine at 1:36 p.m. to
put Eagle and Columbia into lunar orbit.
Then, after a day of rest, surface obser-
vation, and equipment checks, Armstrong
and Aldrin crawl from Columbia to Eagle
through a tunnel. At 3:14 p.m. Sunday
Eagle separates from Columbia, which re-
mains in moon orbit, and heads for a land-
ing,
AN AUTOMATIC computer and radar
system fires Eagle's engines to lower the
spacecraft towards its landing site in the
dry Sea of Tranquility. At an altitude of
200 feet Armstrong takes over manual con-
trol, hovering over the surface looking for
a smooth landing spot.
Finding an appropriate area, he lowers
Eagle at 3 miles per hour to the lunar sur-
face. The engine shuts off 15 feet above
the moon's soil and Eagle drops to the sur-
face.
So at 4:23 p.m. on July 20, 1969 two men
land on the moon, fulfilling the schedule
set eight years before. Back on e a r t h,
though s o m e debate' the wisdom of the
trip, mankind will never be the same again.
For just as we have conquered the seas,
the land, and the air we have now con-
quered space. And the moon is the first of
many new frontiers.
eventually launch a grapefruit-size satel-
lite into earth orbit.
THE TURNING POINT came on Octo-
ber 4, 1967 when IRussia launched the first
artificial satellite, Sputnik I, an event call-
ed a "technological Pearl Harbor" by Sen.
Stuart Symington.
The result was public uproar, Cqngres-
sional investigations, and a viable space
program. The National Aeronautics and
Space Administration was established July
29, 1958 to peacefully explore space.
Eisenhower, reluctantly moving under
pgublic pressure, approved Project Mercury
to orbit a man around the earth and the
development of a 1.5 million pound thrust
4i
AMES WECHSLER:
IWiting for ext year
THE WORD from Washington
is that President Nixon h a s
privately told five of his Republi-
can Senatorial brethren that he is
aiming for virtually total with-
drawal of 'U.S. troops from Viet-
nam before the Congressional
elections of November, 1970.
A dispatch from Robert J.
Donovan, veteran correspondent
of the Los Angeles Times-Wash-
ington Post syndicate, discloses
that the President informed the
group that it would be disastrous
for the GOP if large numbers of
Americans were still in Vietnam
when the 1970 contests took place.
It was unclear to the visitors,
with Mr. Nixon's emotional re-
joinder to Clark Clifford.
AND NOW' that the story is
out, for perusal in Hanoi and
other places. the question emerges
more sharply than ever: is there
any excuse for the continued ex-
penditure of American life on that
dead-end battlefield? Must thous-
ands more endure death and dis-
ability while Mr. Nixon seeks to
mask our ultimate retreat by
sanctioning such military follies
as the Apbia Mountain expedi-
tion and other tragic sideshows
that will have no crucial bearing
on the outcome? How long will
The argument is an ancient
tired one. It is reduced to absurd-
ity by the spectacle of the Presi-
dent himself confiding to five
Senators his recognition that time
is running out on him, and that
he must somehow bring the boys
home by autumn of next year.
Surely he must have known that
a "leak" was inevitable; he- has
spent too much time around
Washington to believe such a
meeting could remain secret.
Conceivably he wanted the news
to get out in this fashion to
pacify an increasingly impatient
domestic opinion. The real result
should be to inflame rather than
sedate. For it' confirms what
many of us have long believed and
argued - that lives are b e i n g
squandered in an interval when
military action has lost all real
meaning and when only the pro-
cedural process of disengagement
- and dissociation from the Sai-
gon cabal--is the hang-up. But if
next autumn, why not now?
IT IS SAD enough that the
new Administration did not move
at once in January on a dramatic
scale but chose instead to perpet-
uate the fiction of continuity in
our relations with Saigon. That
was Mr. Nixon's first great decis-
ion - or indecision. He is still
floundering on his way to the exit,
while young men perish and the
nation's home front remains para-
lyzed and explosive.
It is highly unlikely that Hanoi
first detected Mr. Nixon's time-
table when it read the Donovan
dispatch. What Nixon told the
Senators ir private has long been
accepted as politically axiomatic
in public-that his Administra-
tion would be in mortal peril if
the war was still being fought a
year from November. Actually,
time may be much shorter; the
prospect of major campus con-
vulsions this fall is steadily grow-
ing.
In any case we are dealing with
adversaries wiho have fought for
25 years. They have seen one
American President driven into
exile by this war. They know the
essential vulnerability of the Sai-
gon regime. Does anyone seriously
believe they will be tempted to
modify their terms - especially on
the key issue of coalition - if
we sustain this madness until next
year?
In Theodore White's forthcom-
ing volume on the 1968 Presiden-
tial race, he confirms - on the
basis of what must have been ac-
cess to key sources - a report
first published last fall that the
Saigon regime sabotaged a major
turn toward peace in Paris on
the eve of our elections. It appar-
ently did so at the urging of Anna
Chan Chennault; Chinese-b o r n
widow of Gen. Chennault; in her
one-woman campaign she con-
vinced Saigon that a Nixon vic-
tory would insure a "hard line's
and that any accord' in P a r i s
would imperil his chances. Saigon
sabotaged the peace move.
White's inquiry convinced h i m
that Nixon had no hand in Mrs.
Chennault's intrigues. But the rel-
'I 4C
JE
}a
r*
"No, those ore rocks Goy. Rockefeller
brought back from South America !"
I.
Letters to the Editor
f
Y
Donovan said, whether the sweep- we go through the motions of
ing disengagement was "a settled "solidarity" with the Thieu-Ky
plan" or a "deep hope." But one regime when, in the end, that
Senator said he was "depressed" cabal will have to be dissolved and
when the meeting began a n d replaced by one form of coalition
"elated" when it was over. or another to achieve the peace
By the time this comment an- admittedly vital to GOP Congres-
pears, the White House may have signal fortunes m 1970 and the
issued' a variety of clarifying com- fate of Mr. Nixon's Administra-
nin~i ri n p t blnk, tion two years later?
U21umques ues.gneu)to o lan eL an
blur the disclosure. But it has an
unmistakable tone of authentic-
ity (and virtually the same story
appears in the current issue of
Time magazine). It is consistent
Not many days ago Vice Presi-
dent Agnew was shrilly assailing
critics of the Vietnam war f o r
prolonging the conflict by rais-
ing the enemy's hopes.
S'C demands
To the Editor:
IN A DAILY editorial Tuesday (8
July), Daniel Zwerdling argued.
1) that SGC is right in demand-
bg a) votes on all University
committees where SGC appointees
sit without vote, b) parity in
membership on all faculty and ad-
ministration committees dealing
with matters significantly affect-
ing students, and Ec) power to in-
struct administrators within the
Office of Student Affairs (OSA) ;
and 2) that SGC's tactic fits its
demands.
Like Zwerdling, I think SGC's
d e m a n d s make sense. Unlike
Zwerdling, I think the tactic poor-
ly fitted to the demands. Because
I don't want to be an after-the-
disaster commentator, I'll offer
an alternative now, before the
disaster.
To win its demands, SGC has
declared that any committee not
constituted as demanded will have
its SGC appointees withdrawn.
MY ALTERNATIVE is: a)
Where students are members but
cannot vote, SGC should instruct
its appointees to vote, to demand
their votes be counted, and to
make business impossible where
they are not granted the vote. b)
Where parity in membership is
desired, SGC should appoint the
number of students necessary to
achieve parity, instruct them all
to act as full participants, and
make it clear that they will at-
tend and participate as if they
were full members until they have
been officially recognized to be
so. c) Where an administrator is
to be made subject to an ad-
visory or policy board, SGC should
find clear issues (like a tuition
increase or increase in dorm
rates) and force the administra-
tor to go along on each 'such
siue until obedience bencomes
the other side. To get more power,
SGC gives up what it has, leaving
Fleming and those under him
the opportunity to make all sorts
Df telling propaganda. (For ex-
ample : "How can we talk about
giving students votes when they
don't even come to meetings .of
those committees?" or "If they
want to participate, they can.
We haven't closed any doors. If
they don't, that's their right.
We're not going to force them.")
THOSE WHO'D rather not
have students on committees need
do ,nothing' to have their ,way.
After the first- shock of with-
drawal, even those faculty and
administrators who think they
like having students around will
begin to get used to their ab-
sence. Business will not stop.
Unless SGC then goes on to adopt
a tactic like the oneI recommend
ror ones far more radical), time
will actually work against SGC's
demands, habit always being an
impressive argument to those left
in comfort.
The alternative does not give up
seats just won, involves acting out
what is being demanded (by far
the best way to dramatize de-
mands), and forces faculty and
administrators to say no over and
over again in all sorts of awkward
and unpleasant circumstances,
making it likely that the longer
they say no, the more they will
want to say yes. They cannot for-
get the demands because they
will have to face them again with
each meeting.
SOC wants to get what it has
demanded. SGC has enough stu-
dents to cover all committees
where it warnts parity, votes, or
more power. (If not, then the
administration has a point when
it says students don't really take
an interest.) There can be no
excuse- then for choosing the
tactic SGC has chosen. There
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